PhD Defence: Tim Groot Kormelink – Capturing and making sense of everyday news use

Date: Tuesday November 12th, 13:45, in the Aula of the VU
Title: “Capturing and making sense of everyday news use”
Supervisor: prof. dr. Irene Costera Meijer. Co-supervisor: prof. dr. Marcel Broersma
Committee: prof. dr. Katja Kwastek, prof. dr. José van Dijck, prof. dr. Wiebke Loosen, prof. dr. Mark Deuze, prof. dr. Hallvard Moe

On the face of it, both journalism and Journalism Studies have witnessed a shift toward the users of news. However, while news users have taken center stage in discussions about journalism, they are still more often spoken about rather than spoken with. As a result, we have comparatively little understanding of news use from an emic perspective (Pike, 1967): how news users make sense of their own news use. My dissertation therefore seeks to understand news users explicitly in and on their own terms. Specifically, it takes their experience as point of departure, and explores the theoretical, methodological and epistemological implications involved. Its central question is deceptively simple: How can people’s experiences of news use be captured, and how can these experiences help us to make sense of everyday news use? Rather than aiming to arrive at a unified audience theory, the dissertation seeks to do justice to the messiness and contradictions of everyday news use in all its complexity.

Link to PhD-thesis: https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/capturing-and-making-sense-of-everyday-news-use